Backwards and Forwards : A Technical Manual for Reading Plays
ISBN: 9780809311101 | 0809311100
Format: PaperbackPublisher: Southern Illinois Univ Pr
Pub. Date: 7/7/1983
Why Rent from Knetbooks?
Because Knetbooks knows college students. Our rental program is designed to save you time and money. Whether you need a textbook for a semester, quarter or even a summer session, we have an option for you. Simply select a rental period, enter your information and your book will be on its way!
Top 5 reasons to order all your textbooks from Knetbooks:
- We have the lowest prices on thousands of popular textbooks
- Free shipping both ways on ALL orders
- Most orders ship within 48 hours
- Need your book longer than expected? Extending your rental is simple
- Our customer support team is always here to help
This guide to playreading for students and practitioners of both theater and literature complements, rather then contradicts or repeats, traditional methods of literary analysis of scripts. Ball developed his method during his work as Literary Director at the Guthrie Theater, building his guide on the crafts playwrights of every period and style use to make their plays stageworthy. The text is full of tools for students and practitioners to use as they investigate plot, character, theme, exposition, imagery, motivation/obstacle/conflict, theatricality, and the other crucial parts of the superstructure of a play. He includes guides for discovering what the playwright considers the play's most important elements, thus permitting interpretation based on the foundation of the play rather than its details. UsingHamletas illustration, Ball assures a familiar base for illustrating script-reading techniques as well as examples of the kinds of misinterpretation readers can fall prey to by ignoring the craft of the playwright. Of immense utility to those who want to put plays on the stage (actors, directors, designers, production specialists)Backwards and Forwardsis also a fine playwriting manual because the structures it describes are the primary tools of the playwright.
| Foreword | vii | ||||
| Introduction | 3 | (4) | |||
| Part One: Shape | 7 | (30) | |||
| 9 | (3) | |||
| 12 | (3) | ||||
| 15 | (4) | |||
| 19 | (6) | |||
| 25 | (7) | |||
| 32 | (3) | |||
| 35 | (2) | |||
| Part Two: Methods | 37 | (42) | |||
| 39 | (6) | |||
| 45 | (15) | |||
| 60 | (8) | |||
| 68 | (8) | |||
| 76 | (3) | |||
| Part Three: Tricks of the Trade | 79 | ||||
| 81 | (2) | |||
| 83 | (2) | |||
| 85 | (1) | |||
| 86 | (1) | |||
| 87 | (2) | |||
| 89 | (3) | |||
| 92 | (1) | |||
| 93 | (1) | |||
| 94 | (1) | |||
| 95 |
David Ball is Professor of playwriting, acting, theater history, and literature at Carnegie-Mellon University and Artistic Director, Pittsburgh Metropolitan Stage Company. He has published two plays, Assassin! and an adaptation of Woyzeck, and has written and directed more than one hundred plays in professional, academic, and community theaters.
Please wait while this item is added to your cart...
